HIKING THE CERROS OF LA PUNTILLA

Three kilometers south of the city of Taltal the rocky promontory known as La Puntilla juts out into the deep blue waters of the South Pacific.

Its rugged permanence defines the southern limits of the Bahía de Taltal,

and its presence helps to preserve the relative tranquility of the Taltal waterfront. From there one can appreciate a unique view of the town itself across the bahía.

Every year, in February, Taltalinos use the chapel and shrine on this promontory for a series of ceremonies in Taltal´s annual Fiesta de la Virgen de Nuestra Señora de Lourdes, a spectacular religious and dance festival that draws hundreds of participants from Antofagasta, Calama, and from other communities in northern Chile, many of whom camp out at La Puntilla during the fiesta.
Pictured at left is the shrine where these ceremonies take place.

Yesterday I made my own pilgrimage out to the promontory, which is currently unoccupied, and hiked around on the cerros (hills) which help to define the character of this small peninsula.

The following images will give you some kind of an idea of the beauty of La Puntilla.

I hiked out about as far as I could and sat down to enjoy a sack lunch I´d packed along, and looked out onto the farthest rocky extension, a guano-covered islet which contains a lively (and loud) sea lion colony, which along the Chilean coast is known as a "loberia." Form my vantage point high above the loberia, I could see several fishing boats operating in the shoals surrounding the islet, and it seemed that their presence was very disturbing to the sea lions, whose agitated barking and growling seemed to be met by similar guttral utterances coming from the fishermen. No doubt there is little love to be found to exist between the two - as the fishermen likely see the sea lions as little more than competition for the fruits of the waters.

This last image looks southward from La Puntilla to the Bahía Tegualda and Punta Verde and also the coast extending further south. Here too, the waters seemed to be alive with fishing boats busily working to extract their harvest of fish for the day.

Last night this little city rocked out with a "Reggaeton" music extravaganza, an event which didn´t even begin until 11 p.m. It then ran through most of the night, finally concluding at close to 5 a.m. this morning. The music was loud enough to be heard throughout the town, with driving, pulsing rhythms undoubtedly thrilling an eager audience of the town´s youth, who could frequently be heard cheering the musicians. I suppose if I were a few years younger, I´d have gone to it, but as it was, I tried my best to sleep through the heavy reggae and rock beats of the performing groups. So I didn´t sleep so well last night, but hey, it was put on as another fundraising event, linked to Chile´s annual "Teletón." (Remember, I´d mentioned Teletón in an earlier post?)

Today is going to be my last day in Taltal, and I am planning to get on the road early following breakfast heading up to the northeast, bound for an overnight in the city of Calama before heading on to the desert oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama.

Incidentally, I am looking into making some changes further on in my journey. After my time in Argentina, I see that I might be able to shorten my route considerably if I re-cross into Chile further south, at Paso del Agua Negra (east of the Río Elqui Valley) instead farther north at Paso San Francisco (east of Copiapó). Consider that this change is highly a highly probable alternative to what I´d originally posted.

NOTE: Perhaps you will have noticed that I´ve altered the layout for this blog page a bit. I did that because for some unexplained reason, My Profile, my site Links, and the Archives of this blog had slipped down to the bottom of the page, even though the template layout6 seemed to show that they should be at the top. Anyway, yesterday I tried all sorts of possible fixes for this problem before I decided I needed to change the layout. Now, at least, visitors can (hopefully) see My Profile when they access the blog, instead of having to scroll down to the bottom. I hope that this fix doesn´t get undone!

Next post will likely not be until San Pedro, so have patience.

Chao, amigos.